


Girl Talk/Guy Talk

by mad_martha



Series: Two Households [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2011-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-19 20:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_martha/pseuds/mad_martha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a Broomflight snippet, from when I was still thinking I might continue that story; it follows on directly after the story.  These scenes stemmed from an idea I had that Sirius might have been, at least initially, a little jealous of Lily.  He was James's best friend, but new relationships can cause friction between friends if everyone isn't a bit careful, and especially if there's already a history of animosity between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girl Talk/Guy Talk

"Say again," Morag McDuff said in a worryingly calm voice.

Lily sighed and looked at her best friend imploringly.  "Mo ....  I'm going out with James Potter.  Please don't make a big thing of it – "

Morag's squeal drowned out the rest of her sentence.  "I knew it!  I knew it was all a sham and you were going to cave in sometime!"

"I did _not_ 'cave in'!" Lily protested.  "It was just – he just – oh, never mind!  I didn't cave in, that's all."

"Did he hex you?" Morag demanded.

"No, of course not!"

"Threaten you?"

"Mo!  Like he could!"

"Get his friends to hex or threaten you for him?"

Lily glared.  "Of course he didn't!  Why would he need to?"

"So what did he do to change your mind?" her friend wanted to know.

There was a pause during which Lily plucked at the tasselled fringe of a cushion.  "He's teaching to me to ride a broom," she admitted finally.

Morag stared at her, then let out a little snuffle of laughter.  "That explains it then!"

"It does?" Lily asked suspiciously.

"Of course!  If he can pull off one miracle, why not another?"

Lily pummelled her with the cushion until she shrieked for mercy.

"Seriously, Mo, he's not so bad," she said, when they'd both calmed down and straightened up the sofa.

"You need to practice sounding enthusiastic," her friend told her, amused.  "If you're going out with him, you need to sound like you're actually enjoying it.  Males have fragile egos, you know."

"I don't think that's something James Potter suffers from," Lily remarked dryly.

Morag's eyes began to dance with laughter again. 

"So what have you done so far?" she demanded.

"What do you mean?"

"You'll be the death of me, Lil," her friend said, exasperated.  "What do you _think?_   He's teaching you to ride a broom, but what else?  Coffee at Florean's?  Moonlit suppers in Hogsmeade?  _Snogging?_   I want details!"

"Oh!"  Lily flushed.  "Well ... mostly I've been going to his house for lessons."

Morag snorted.  " _Lessons._   Right.  That's not funny talk for something else, is it?"

"Mo!" Lily shrieked, aghast.

"All right, all right!  Keep your bra on!  So you've been to his house?  Wow!"  Morag grabbed a sofa cushion and sprawled out on the floor, hugging it to her chest and looking at Lily avidly.  "What's it like?  The Potters are supposed to be killer rich."

So Lily told her a little about The Rose House and James's parents.  When she was finished, Morag looked thoughtful.

"At least they aren't shrieking in horror at your Muggle parents and bringing curses down on your head," she commented.  "You know what some pureblood families are like."

"He's been to my house a couple of times too," Lily told her, making a clean breast of it.  "I think Mum and Dad like him, but Petunia is hateful to him, of course."

"Does it bother him?" Morag asked curiously.

"He thinks she's funny," Lily replied wryly.

*

 "Her sister's a bit odd," James observed.  He was sprawled out across Sirius's floor, flicking through a copy of _Which Broom?_   "She calls me a freak."

Sirius frowned.  "Sounds like a right troll to me."

"I don't think she can help it, mate."

"Why does she say that?" Peter wanted to know.  He looked vaguely offended on James's behalf.

James shrugged, not particularly interested.  "Lily reckons she's jealous."

"Because the women are just throwing themselves at you," Remus murmured idly, making Sirius grin.  He was sitting on the couch, nose buried in _Those Who Howl In The Night: A Memoir._

James snorted and gave his knee a shove.  "Not like that, you git!  Jealous of _Lily_ – for being a witch."

"She's probably just afraid," the other youth pointed out, dragging himself out of his book for a moment.  "Lily's a very strong witch, after all."

James considered this with a frown.  "But I don't think she uses magic much at home.  Or talks about it either.  We were discussing that DADA essay yesterday and I just ... sort of got the impression that they weren't used to her doing that.  Actually, her mother got a bit upset when Lily talked about Scalding Curses."  He brightened.  "Her father wants to see a Quidditch match."

"And I want a nice set of flippers and a blow-hole, but it isn't likely to happen," Sirius said impatiently.

Peter looked startled.  "Why would you want that?"

"Oh, for crying out loud!  _Try_ to keep up, Wormtail."

"Take it easy, Padfoot," James said, amused but a little surprised.  "You've been chasing your tail all morning.  What's up?"

Sirius hunched his shoulders in a half-shrug.  "Bored," he muttered.  After a moment, he leaned over the back of the couch and looked down at Remus.  "Have you memorised that?"

"Not worth it," Remus stated, throwing the book down.  "It's just another load of badly researched folk stories cobbled together to make someone a pile of gold."  He sighed.  "I give up.  At this rate, I'm going to have to write my own book just to set the record straight."

"It's an idea," Sirius pointed out encouragingly.

"Except that I don't feel like revealing myself to the whole world as a werewolf," Remus said.  He gave James a sudden look of alarm.  "You haven't told Lily - ?"

"Of course not.  Though I think she'd be all right about it - she goes on enough about anti-goblin discrimination."  James flipped his magazine closed and tossed it to one side.  He rolled onto his back to look at his friends.  "Are we going to do anything?  If I'd wanted to stop in all afternoon, I could have stayed at home and had tea with my mother and great aunts."

"What, no flying lessons scheduled?" Sirius jibed at him.

"She's seeing McDuff today," James replied, refusing to be needled.  Sirius was just a tiny bit jealous of his friend's new girlfriend and the attention she seemed to require, although of course he would never admit it.  He wasn't really jealous of Lily; but there seemed to be an element of feeling that she was usurping his position with his best friend and James was trying to avoid a situation developing where he had to say something about it.  The idea of having such a conversation with Sirius of all people was rather hair-raising, and much better left to Remus.

"You know what that means don't you?" Sirius persisted now.  "Girly talk about _you_ , mate."

James smirked.  "If it gives McDuff a thrill, who am I to deny her?"

Sirius grinned, good humour at least partially restored.  "I'd like to be a fly on the wall …." he speculated.

"I wouldn't," Peter put in, shuddering.  "I don't want to know what they talk about in private."

James tipped his head back to look at him.  "Why not?"

Peter gave him an appalled look that made Sirius snort with laughter.

"I'll tell you what they talk about, Pete.  Make-up – boys - the lead singer of the Wicked Wands, and - " he paused dramatically and Peter winced, " _periods!_ "

James laughed but dragged a cushion off the couch and threw it at him.  "Shut up, Padfoot!  No one wants to know that."

"They talk about sex as well," Remus remarked absently.  He was flicking through Sirius's copy of the _Daily Prophet_ now and didn't see the looks the other three gave him.

"How do you know that?" Peter demanded.

"Hm?"

"Moony?"  Sirius reached over the back of the sofa and plucked the newspaper out of his hands, ignoring his friend's protest.  "Cough up!  How do you know that?"

"Because I overheard at my cousin Lucinda's birthday party last summer," Remus said with a sigh.  "I was minding my own business up a tree - "

"What were you doing up a tree?" James demanded with a laugh in his voice.

Remus gave him an old-fashioned look.  "It's the best place to be when there's a hoard of middle-aged relatives on the loose, you should know that!"

"True!"

"So you were in the tree …." Peter prompted.

"So I was in the tree and just wondering if it was safe to go down and pinch a drink from the buffet table when Lucinda and a bunch of her friends decided to come and sit underneath.  I was stuck there for nearly an hour," he added a little resentfully.  "I thought they were never going to shut up and go away."

"And they were talking about sex?" asked Sirius, his eyes avid.

"Were they ever."  Remus turned a little red.  "No holds barred, either.  Everything from who they'd had to what his measurements were.  Any bad habits … was he any good … you name it, they talked about it.  And _names_.  I got more blackmail material in half an hour than any of us have picked up in six years at school."

Sirius and James looked at each other for a moment, and the latter sat up. 

"So …." he said, eyes sparkling behind his glasses.

"Anyone we know?" Sirius finished for him.

"And why didn't you tell us before?" Peter piped up.

*

 Diagon Alley was too hot and busy for comfort when the four of them arrived there.  James and Sirius both wanted to check out Quality Quidditch Supplies and Peter, as always, went where James went, but Remus had a book to collect from Flourish and Blotts, so they agreed to meet him there if he didn't come to find them first.

"We'll be dragging him out of there," Sirius cheerfully predicted, as they pushed through the crowds, "kicking and screaming, because he's found another fascinating book about _arithmancy_."

They were in the Quidditch store for nearly an hour, examining new brooms, replacing vital bits of equipment for the coming season, and rescuing Peter when a display of team regalia overbalanced onto him.  That seemed to be their cue to leave, so they continued on up the Alley to Flourish and Blotts.  Finding Remus in the dark, cramped bookshop was easier said than done, though.

"Wormtail, you try this floor," Sirius told him.  "Prongs - "

"I'll try the basement," his friend nodded.

"And I'll go upstairs …."

At least it was cool in here, he reflected as he climbed the stairs and began methodically searching through the narrowly spaced shelves for his friend.  The arithmancy comment had only been half a joke; Sirius headed for those shelves first, knowing Remus's love of the subject. 

He didn't find Remus, but he did find someone else - a slender, slightly-built girl with long red hair that he recognised even before he saw her face.

Lily Evans.

For a second Sirius felt a little spurt of anger, wondering if James had set this up because he'd known his girlfriend was going to be there.  Then common sense reasserted itself; it hadn't been James who had proposed this trip, but Remus - James had been all for Apparating somewhere where they could play Quidditch for the rest of the afternoon.  No, this was just chance and nothing else.

He should have just walked on.  She hadn't noticed him; there was no real reason to bring himself to her notice.  But Sirius had never been able to leave things alone.  He sauntered quietly over to her and draped an arm around her shoulders.

"Evans!" he greeted her, grinning when she jumped at the unexpected touch.  "What an unexpected pleasure!"

Green eyes sliced into him and her face slid into a familiar expression of frosty disdain. 

"Black," she said coolly.  "Which woodworm hole did you crawl out of?"

Sirius had to admit, it had never been a mystery to him why James was so fascinated with her.  She was rarely at a loss for words in a confrontation and her extensive arsenal of hexes added a definite spice to the mix. 

"Sweet as ever," he said appreciatively, adding archly, "Enjoying your summer?"

"I _was_."  She pointedly turned back to the book she was leafing through.

"What are you reading?" he persisted.

" _One Thousand Magical Pests And How To Be Rid Of Them,_ " she muttered irritably.

Sirius snorted.  "You wound me."

"I will."  She shrugged his arm off.  "Is there some reason why you're making a nuisance of yourself?  Don't you have someone else's life to make a misery of?"

"Ouch," he remarked, surprised.  "I was just trying to be friendly, Evans - seeing as how you’re my oldest friend's other half these days."

"Don't strain anything in the effort," she retorted witheringly.

"Well it's clear _you_ won't be falling over yourself to wave an olive branch either," he said, his temper shortening.

"Why should I?" Lily demanded.  "I don't suppose you've had a personality transplant over the holiday."

"How about in the interests of friendly relations, bearing in mind that we're all very close to James and – "

"I wasn't talking about Lupin or Pettigrew," she said, cutting across him.  "I'm talking about _you_.  Why are you suddenly so keen to be friends?  It's never bothered you before – with me or quite a few other people."

Sirius was taken aback; this was _personal?_   But before he could think of something to say, Lily had given him another cool, scathing look and turned her attention back to her book.

"I may be going out with James Potter but that doesn't make me your friend, Black," she said, addressing the words to the pages.  "It hasn't changed the person you are, so it's not about to change how I feel about you either."

A sudden shadow fell and a cheerful voice said, "I can't see him downstairs, Padfoot, and – oh hey, it's _you!_ "

Sirius hated the way James's voice changed when he saw Lily, hated how his attention was instantly diverted, hated the way that everything, from the atmosphere in between those dusty bookshelves to his friend's body language, underwent a sudden subtle shift.  He hated how Lily Evans suddenly blushed and glanced sideways at James, the resentful stiffness going out of her body.

"I can see I'm not needed," he snapped, unable to stop himself, and he turned on his heel, storming down to the other end of the stacks and around the shelves.

 **\- The End –**


End file.
